Indecency and the FCC: It’s time to ditch Pacifica

This is the front end of an essay I published yesterday on the PBS site.  

Since the 1970s, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has regulated indecency in broadcast programming. It has enforced laws that prohibit broadcasters from airing, at least during certain hours, any “patently offensive” sexual or excretory material.

And since the 1970s, broadcast outlets have attacked the FCC for doing so. They’ve challenged the agency’s authority, as well as the constitutionality and consistency of its actions. The question today is whether indecency regulation makes sense at all on a media landscape dotted by online and streaming entertainment options.

Enter: FCC v. Fox Television Stations, the latest FCC challenge unfolding at the U.S.Supreme Court. It puts the agency’s indecency regime — its regulation of “patently offensive” sexual or excretory material — up against the First and Fifth Amendments. With the briefs rolling in, let’s unpack the case.

For more, go here (PBS).

Jonathan Peters is a lawyer and the Frank Martin Fellow at the Missouri School of Journalism, where he’s working on his Ph.D. and specializing in the First Amendment.  He’s written on legal issues for a variety of news media, most recently PBS and Wired.  Follow him @jonathanwpeters on Twitter.